Track & Trace Meetup Wallonia

Tracking and Tracing has always been an Internet of Things key focus areas…

To further emphasize and discuss the fast pace of innovation, we organized an “IoT Track and Trace” event on December 10 at Technifutur in Liège.

We wanted to present compelling industrial use cases and show how innovative companies are developing strong solutions by integrating impressive technology developments.
Three companies, at different maturity levels, made the show:

Emixis, with their proven Securysat asset tracking solution, provided “as a Service”, with a large installed base (http://www.emixis.com/)

Microsys, a laboratory of the University of Liège, with their ultra-low-power sensors and energy harvesting developments (http://www.microsys.ulg.ac.be/)

Gregory Delguste from Emixis demonstrated the importance of a comprehensive asset tracking solution architecture to address customer needs. He emphasized the different challenges in the multiple components of the solution. The power of the Emixis SaaS platform, running on AWS, was impressive. And the operational constraints were a good reminder to everybody that customers must be supported and this must be carefully planned.

Guillaume Roland from Border System presented first different research projects carried by Border System. He then focused more specifically on the new object and worker tracking system. This solution operates in a predefined area, at a high accuracy level of 10cm, and a response time lower than 20 sec. This system is quite effective in detecting obstacles and in providing real-time alarms.

Philippe Laurent from Microsys explained the importance of ultra-low power sensors in IoT. Next to low-power batteries with large autonomy, energy available in the surroundings can also be harvested. Microsys is developing energy harvesting systems. A live demonstration with a smart frisbee equipped with a sensor and an ultra-low-power battery ended the session. Very impressive to be able to display the collected data live on everybody’s smartphone!

Each session gave the opportunity to ask interesting questions. We had a great level of interaction. And the discussions continued during the drink offered by Technifutur.

It is always amazing to witness how much IoT is quickly evolving and how much individuals as well as companies are committed to make it a success. We are very proud at IoTBE to facilitate the interactions and to provide a platform for new business developments!